Deep South In Thailand

Louisa and I visited Pattani and Yala in the Deep South of Thailand to conduct research and prepare edible works for the upcoming Pattani Biennale.

On Day 1, we got a first taste of Pattani’s “sweet” salt, which is softer in flavor because the river meets the ocean at the bay, its brackish water locked into the crystals, as the salt farmers explained.

We continued by saleng and met a fisher couple just back from their 4 am to noon catch that follows a rhythm of casting, waiting, checking, thirty minutes at a time without ever feeling bored.

Later, a food cart came to us on the seaside road with coconut ice cream and we ate it as the starter before a savory meal. Although it’s not the usual order of food, it felt right to start on a sweet note as sweetness is much loved in Pattani.

On our second day in Thailand's Deep South, we visited Chao-On, a gardener and herbalist in the forests of Pattani. Locating him proved challenging, as GPS signals weren’t reliable in the dense tree cover. Thankfully he found us on the road to guide us into the woods. He explained that after realizing he could live self-sufficiently by cultivating his own food, he decided to leave his former life behind to settle there with his wife.

Surrounded by torch ginger flowers and wild figs, we quickly understood the sanctuary's undeniable draw. After presenting us with a soda made with banana that was fermented in stingless bee honey for a month, he showed us how to eat Kratom and generously gave us ingredients for our future ferments.

Later, arriving in Yala, we enjoyed an exquisite seafood lunch at a local eatery before meeting Om, a jazz musician, and his family. They introduced us to their way of preparing a meal with budu, which they brought out alongside a bottle of wine and coconut ice cream.

On our last day, we gathered fresh ingredients at the municipal market to prepare and leave in Pattani until August. The market ladies explained how they pickle sataw traditionally with som kaek.

In the afternoon, we drove east to a salt farm experimenting with fleur de sel and actively looking for ways to sustain and innovate their local production. The ‘sweetness’ of Pattani Sweet Salt kept coming up jokingly as we tasted through the varieties.

We continued the drive to Nam Bo, where we met Sulkiflee and Fatin by the fermentation pits of Budu, a salty anchovy sauce. Their handcrafted Budu is never sold in the markets; it is produced at such an intimate scale that only the neighbours and those in the know get to have their hands on the supply. This generational process of fermentation continues steadily despite social unrest and occasional bomb attacks.

The concentrated taste of sea salt and anchovies still lingers in our sensory memory.